This is the second year in a row fin whales have avoided slaughter in Iceland. In 2011, Iceland postponed its fin whale season citing a lack of demand for fin whale meat in Japan after the tsunami. This year, media reports indicate that fin whaling giant Kristjan Loftsson – the man responsible for all of Iceland’s fin whaling – failed to reach collective agreement with the Association of Icelandic Fishermen on salaries and conditions for deckhands.

Although fin whales face a welcome reprieve this year, Iceland has killed 280 endangered fin whales and hundreds of minke whales since it resumed whaling in 2006 in violation of the moratorium on commercial whaling. In 2009, Iceland dramatically increased its self allocated fin whale quota to 150 animals a year – more than three times the catch limit that the International Whaling Commission’s Scientific Committee (the world’s foremost experts on whales) considers sustainable for the species’ survival.

NRDC and eighteen other NGOs responded to Iceland’s renegade whaling in December 2010 by filing a petition under the Pelly Amendment to the Fisherman’s Protective Act urging the Secretaries of Commerce and Interior to certify and enact sanctions against Iceland.

Led by renowned actor and marine mammal activist Pierce Brosnan, NRDC urged President Obama to impose tough sanctions against Iceland for its rogue whaling. And NRDC Members and activists sent over 100,000 messages to President Obama.

Unlike countries that rely on whale meat for subsistence purposes, Iceland has only a limited domestic market for minke whales, and its people have not traditionally eaten fin whales. Iceland had hoped to find a profitable market in Japan – whose warehouses are already glutted with thousands of tons of excess whale meat from its own suspect “scientific whaling” program and whose demand for whale meat is at an all-time low following the 2011 tsunami.

Comments

Well, I guess if they don't stop now, they will when they have slaughter the very last fin whale in existence. Who are these people that have no care? This is disaster. Heartwrenchingly devastating. WAKE UP!!

Congratulations Iceland. In the South Africa waters the numbers of the southern right whale was in 1940 down to only 100. Whaling was banned in 1979. We now have more than a 1000 of these magnificent animals. Numbers are now increasing at a rate of 7% per year. In 2040 the population will be again at the original numbers. The general South African is inherent protective.

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